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July 2009

July 12, 2009

“I was in St. Petersburg before and after the summit and in Moscow
during it. I heard not one bad word and thousands of good words about
President Obama both from ordinary and official Russians. Levy and
Barry from the NYT could not have failed but to hear the same.”

GH

Despite the positive start that the first Obama-Medvedev summit has
given to resetting U.S.-Russian relations, the U.S. mainstream media
has done its ‘best’ to put a negative spin on the event. Before the
summit The New York Times (NYT), Washington Post (WP) and Wall Street
Journal (WSJ) set up their negative post-summit conclusions with dreary
pre-summit warnings that Russians were waiting for Obama practically
with weapons in hand. Article titles set the tone: “Russia's Grand
Inquisitor (David Ignatius, WP, 2 July), “What a ‘Reset’ Can’t Fix”
(David Ignatius, WP, 5 July), and “Russia and the Perils of Personal
Diplomacy” (NYT, 6 July). The day after the summit’s end the NYT, WP
and WSJ flooded their pages with negative takes.

The first serious presidential meetings between Presidents Obama and Medvedev (and Prime Minister Putin) have ended. IMHO, the meetings were as constructive as they could have been under the circumstances. Fortunately, President Obama is a good listener as well as an exceptional orator; he asked questions and listened more intently than had his predecessor. These three men undoubtedly understand each other and each country's perspective better than a week ago.

Given President Obama’s limited experience with Russia, face-to-face meetings were particularly important. A couple years back, his foreign policy advisor was quite frank in admitting, "We have no experience with Russia, we have concentrated on other countries. We need to hear from you and others what is really going on there." Following his inauguration, there was no time to focus on Russia. To be sure, Russia has been an irritant during this period, but not a potential disaster as other key countries and the financial meltdown have been.

July 09, 2009

by Patrick ArmstrongRussia-US summit. To my mind, Obama said a number of things that deserve being said, particularly: “America wants a strong, peaceful, and prosperous Russia… we also recognize the future benefit that will come from a strong and vibrant Russia.” For too long, the prevailing impression has been that Washington would prefer a weak, turbulent and poverty-stricken Russia. He also intimated that the end of the Cold War was not simply a result of US action. On the two burning concerns for Moscow, he showed openness. He hinted at the possibility of Russian involvement in missile defence and, on NATO expansion, rather than the usual wooden language, listed the things Ukraine and Georgia must do to qualify for membership (one of them, “a majority of its people must choose to”, effectively rules out Ukraine); he also stated: “NATO should be seeking collaboration with Russia, not confrontation”. The only jarring note, probably understandably, I saw was “I reiterated my firm belief that Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected”. If only it were that simple: but Tbilisi ought not to have done things in the late 1980s and 1990s that persuaded Ossetians and Abkhazians they had no future in an independent Georgia. The two roughed out a nuclear weapons agreement and US transit through Russia to Afghanistan was extended. Overall, the “reset” seems to be off to a good start. But we’ve been here before: Clinton-Yeltsin and Bush-Putin also started well. Things happen and each government has long-entrenched interests that work against these beginnings.

The article below confirms Russia Media Watch’s expectations that with the current administration’s efforts to improve relations with Russia, will see Republican-oriented media outlets, like the Wall Street Journal, taking an even more harsh line against Russia.

This is similar to the Democrat-oriented Washington Post and New York Times, which took a harsh line against the Bush administration’s Russia policy as being ineffectual. Now they are beginning to slightly soften their line on Russia. Much reporting on Russia in the U.S. mainstream media is colored by the exigencies of American domestic politics rather than by a desire to present an objective view of the complexities and nuances of Russian political life.

July 08, 2009

Overall, the President Barack Obama and his administration
should be given high marks for the performance leading up to and at the
U.S.-Russian summit in Moscow. A grade of A- would be fair. First,
a few marks on rhetoric are in order .

ON RHETORIC

In general, President Obama struck the proper tone and balance when
addressing the issue of democratic values. He successfully balanced
American support for such values with the need to trade softly on this point in
a country determined that democracy there will have a Russian character
and where democratization has been seen increasingly as a tool for expanding
American power. This is because democratization and “colored revolutions”
in Russia’s sphere of influence have brought with them the U.S.-led NATO
military alliance.

July 06, 2009

Barack Obama often seems to have much of the planet at his feet in rapt attention to his every word.

But the president as global oracle is about to meet his stony match -- in the vast and barren place that proved a graveyard for Napoleon and that has an ingrained suspicion of foreigners as an abiding quality of its cultural DNA.

That place, of course, is Russia, which Obama plans to visit this month. The president will find a Kremlin amenable to doing business with him on traditional diplomatic matters like reducing nuclear weapons stockpiles, so long as Moscow is convinced the deal is an even one.

But if Obama, more ambitiously, hopes to win over the hearts of the Russian people -- along the lines of his recent Cairo address, pitched over the heads of the governments of the Islamic world and straight at their citizenry -- he can expect to leave disappointed.

The Russians, to start with, have never been all that enthralled with the Obama phenomenon. On the eve of his inauguration, a 17-nation poll conducted by the BBC World Service found that in every country except two, a majority of the people believed his presidency would lead to an improvement in relations between the United States and the rest of the world.

I can not insist that my position is shared by the entire population of the Russian Federation, but I am sure my opinion is that of the majority of economically active Russian citizens taking interest in today's foreign policy.

For most Russians the victory of Barack Obama at the U.S. presidential elections was quite desirable. Although, frankly speaking, at the beginning of the pre-race, I predicted Obama's loss because of the color of his skin. I thought that racist attitudes are still too strong in the United States, but, fortunately, Americans were wiser and more democratic than I expected. Like Americans, we hoped that Obama's victory would bring some update, if you want, the reincarnation of America, which in recent decades has been viewed by the world community not as a bastion of democracy, but rather as "the world's policeman" guarding the interests of "golden billion."

July 02, 2009

Response to Wall Street Journal "Russians
Outfox U.S. in Latest Great Game" by Alan Cullison, June 11, 2009

By Gordon Hahn

The
Wall Street Journal article reviewed below attempts to tie re-authoritarianization
in Kyrgyzstan with increasing Russian influence in the Central Asian country. The real reason behind disenchantment
with Bakiev’s regime expressed in the article, however, is the hapless
misinterpretation by Bishkek to ostensibly ‘terminate’ the U.S. lease of
Manas.Once again the U.S.
mainstream media has gotten it wrong.Less than two weeks after this article was published, the Kyrgyz had
renegotiated a new deal with the U.S. allowing the latter’s base to remain at a
higher renting price.All along it
was clear that the cancellation of the lease and the Kyrgyz’s alleged decision
to close down the base was in part, 1) a ploy by the Kyrgyz to get more money
from Washington, and 2) in part a ploy by Moscow to gather bargaining chips in
its negotiations with the new U.S. administration and to demonstrate to
Washington that it can limit the U.S. presence in the region. The Kyrgyz move was immediately interpreted
in the West as induced through pressure by Moscow because it was announced
following a meeting with Medvedev and the announcement of a substantial Moscow
aid package for Bishkek. Moscow, it was assumed, was trying to block any and
all U.S. access to Central Asia. In a meeting with Russian ambassador to the UN Vitalii
Churkin in April, just days after the announcement, I suggested to Churkin that
this was really a clever bargaining maneuver by Bakiev who was seeking a much
higher rental fee from the U.S. and assistance from Russia.He agreed this interpretation was very
plausible. The ostensible role of Moscow underscored both the strength of the
Bishkek maneuver for Kyrgyzstan and allowed Moscow to gather bargaining chips
in upcoming negotiations over various issues and the overall U.S.-Russian
relationship. Again, it underscored Moscow’s potential to influence and even
control U.S. access to Central Asian bases or ‘transit centers.’In addition, under this scenario,
Bishkek can play one side off against the other and get more assistance from
both.These explanations for the
Manas Base cancellation were never considered in the U.S. mainstream
media.Instead, it was immediately
assumed that it was simply a matter of Moscow having pressured Bishkek and
having opposed and “outfoxed” Washington, as author and editors of the article
under review below do.

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